Bush's decorum has cracked somewhat.

Well, it looks like the Roadmap plan isn’t going through. Between Israeli attacks on Hamas leaders and a new Hamas bus bombing in Israel, Israeli/Palestinian negotiations have fallen through yet again.

The only solution to the problem in general is one of the demands Ariel Sharon made of his adversaries; that the Palestinians clean up their act and excise the terrorist cells operating from their lands. The Palestinian Prime Minister, whose name escapes me at the moment, has said that he can’t oppose Hamas because a) his security forces have been decimated, and b) it would mean civil war. Unfortunately, civil war is the only thing that will result in a stable, strong and peaceful governemnt in Palestine, one not ruled by Hamas and the Al Aqsa “Martyr’s” Brigade.

The title of my post comes from a press release about Bush’s comment on the recent bombing. It was said that, while on Marine One, somewhere in the Chicago area I beleive, that he “deplored the terrorist attack” in “the strongest possible terms.”

Which leads me to ask: Bush said something that they couldn’t directly quote? It looks like he’s overcoming some of that country boy shine and using a little strong language.

Anyway, just thought I should post that. Yar.

The Al AHmas leader wasn’t killed by the Israelis and in the hospital he said “Now we are going to fight untill every Israeli has been wiped from Earth”. This won’t end good…

Plus, Bush doesn’t want a civil war because that would mean less subordination from the new country to be formed. The current Orime Minister of palestine was chosen because of that.

Peace in that region only depends on Israel. They are taking too much time to take those israelis from palestine. The thing is that Sharo nis trying to get the most of palestine he can before the creation of the new country, so he wants to keep some families there anyway. If he really intended to take them all out, they would all already be outta there.

Originally posted by Ren
The Al AHmas leader wasn’t killed by the Israelis and in the hospital he said “Now we are going to fight untill every Israeli has been wiped from Earth”. This won’t end good…

They say that every other week. So what?

And I know that the Hamas guy didn’t die. However, two of them did die after the bombing when Israel retaliated.

Telling. Fox News doesn’t seem to include the homicide bomber in the death toll for the bus attack.

Nothing special about it, if it wasn’t said when it was said. For the first time in history peace negotiations seemed (emphasis on seemed) to go on seriously.

The only thing a civil war in there would accomplish would be killing so many people, on every single side (you’re mistaken if you think Israelis won’t suffer from it), and causing so much indiscriminate violence, that the extreme militants, of both the “Biblical-borders-Israel” and “Jews-into-the-sea” variety, would be assured of never running out of followers. And let me tell you, they aren’t going to give a damn if Bush raises his voice at them. His “decorum” ran out years ago, anyway.

I personally am waiting for the Taiwan/China situation to blow up in the world’s face. US policy on this will fail unless they acknoledge the island.

I agree. The chinese government’s repression is simply intolerable. And if the US government ignores this situation, then things may end in a bloodbath.

I give it about a decade before the Chinese decide to solve the problem of their ahem ‘renegade province’. Then one of the two Chinas is gonna get nuked unless the US step in and stop them. Keeping a navy in the straight ain’t gonna work forever.

The only problem with a US intervention is the US government’s inability to finish what it starts and deal with the aftermath… And I’m not even going to mention the fact that in recent times, the US have only intervened in areas that directly interested them.

What with the size of the country and the economy, I should think China would interest everyone. I think the currently trade swing is $70 billion to China from the US favour. I think…

Plus the US are already involved, by selling arms to Taiwan. I would have thought the PRC’d by pretty pissed at that

Originally posted by Kraken
Telling. Fox News doesn’t seem to include the homicide bomber in the death toll for the bus attack.

Of course not. That might displease their audience. :stuck_out_tongue:

Why can’t the Israelis stay in the settlements and just give the settlements to the Palestinians…a lot of them would probably move out anyway if that happened. And Palestinians can live in Israel. Why can’t Israelis live in the Palestinian state? Oh, right, terrorists…

Israelis DO live there. They’re just being kicked out. Frankly, there isn’t any real reason for them not being allowed to live there other than the fact that the Arabs don’t want them there, which sounds pretty racist to me. The main problem is the soldiers being there, not the settlers, as far as I can tell.

In any case, though, as I said earlier, civil war is not the answer, but neither is Sharon talking with Abbas the answer. The answer is a propaganda change: stop teaching Palestinian kids that killing Jews will take you to heaven, and start teaching them that Jews are people like they are and who they have to learn to live with. Once that happens, we’ll have something to talk about. Israeli textbooks have already included Palestinian issues in them, including how to deal with them personally as people, but Palestinian ones still show the entire area as one big “Palestine”, and media still laud suicide bombing as something to aspire to. When that changes, we have somewhere to go.

I do agree that Israeli attacks probably won’t help much either at the moment. Both sides have to shift their focus.

Well, either someone makes a decisive move for peace soon, or things will get even worse…

Well, either someone makes a decisive move for peace soon, or things will get even worse… Either they learn to respect and accept each other, or that place will be covered in blood for generations to come…

Originally posted by Cidolfas
Israelis DO live there. They’re just being kicked out. Frankly, there isn’t any real reason for them not being allowed to live there other than the fact that…
…other than the fact that the way the settlements are, Palestinian territory would be split up into isolated pieces. To have a state, one usually has to have sovereignty over a whole amount of land within set borders, which is made difficult if that land is split up in multiple places by foreign settlements and highways.

While I get what SK’s saying, I really don’t understand how Gaza would be included in the Palestinian state if going by those terms.

Um… then by that argument Chinatown’s a settlement, and Little Italy’s a settlement, and Arab East Jerusalem is a settlement. Yet somehow Canada and Israel aren’t complaining about them.

Last I heard, neither Chinatown nor Little Italy was a foreign state. I somehow doubt Chinatown is under the jurisdiction of China, considered China’s territory and protected by China’s troops.

First of all, most of the Israeli settlers are militant and are scarier to the Palestinians than the soldiers. Most settlers are the extremists, and there are some very bad incidents associated with Israeli settlers, for instance the Jewish doctor settler who entered a mosque with a shotgun and started firing, killing about 30 people before they took him down and beat him to death. Second of all, what the Palestinians are scared of the most is that one day there weill be more Jews living in the West Bank than Arabs, and if that happens than what’s the point of making a Palestinian state? Some would say that the West Bank settlement movement is an insidious plan to displace the Palestinian people.

Originally posted by Sephiroth Katana
Last I heard, neither Chinatown nor Little Italy was a foreign state. I somehow doubt Chinatown is under the jurisdiction of China, considered China’s territory and protected by China’s troops.
I think Cid is suggesting that Palestine isn’t a foreign state either.